For Vocations Awareness Week, the Register looks at an Indiana family’s popular game promoting vocations and a new Internet video made by seminarians in Rome.

Joseph Pronechen

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Vocations
Awareness Week is Jan. 11-17, and that awareness comes in more forms than ever.
We’ll look at three: an Indiana family’s popular game, a new Internet video
made by seminarians in Rome, and the Serra Club’s Elijah Cup initiative.

When young J.J. Newcomb said he
wanted to be a priest, he inspired his mother, Michelle, to create The Priest
Game for J.J. and the family. Unplanned and unexpected, it soon began spreading
nationwide for families, older children, and even adults, as an entertaining
way to learn about the Mass, priesthood and the faith (Tom
and April Hoopes recommend it in this issue’s “User’s Guide to Sunday,” page
B4).

It’s one of several new initiatives
that are helping boys to start thinking about the priesthood.

“I thought the game would be a neat
way to teach him his colors using priest’s vestments,” said Michelle, a mother
of six children, age 4 to 14, and one foster infant.

Father Timothy Alkire, the Newcombs’
pastor at St. Boniface in Lafayette, Ind., agreed to let her photograph him in
vestments in the sacristy.

“That’s when Providence began
molding and shaping this to be what it is,” said Newcomb. She got permission to
take pictures of all the vestments, beginning with the chasubles (the focus was
still on colors), then soon added the other vestments and vessels for Mass and
worship, like the chalice, paten, censer and monstrance.

Newcomb expanded to six boards with
12 sides and 96 pieces. For different pictures on each, other priests consented
to have their photos taken. One board has the diocesan vocation director. On
another, Lafayette Bishop William Higi became the focal point, along with a
bishop’s vestments.

The photos form pieces which are
“won” by a spinner in the game, explained Newcomb.

Quickly, the game spread to the
parish, then to a neighboring one, then to others.

“We wanted to show our openness to
the call for our son — we’re hoping that that comes out of this, mainly,” said
Ken Newcomb. “It was a teaching aid for him. Then we thought a lot more people
could benefit from it. There’s a lack of good Catholic educational games for
children.”

To have several made, the Newcombs
met with a game company president who told them “he normally never looked at a
project like this, but he saw God’s hand in it,” related Michelle. He printed
them into quality products.

Players now learn far more than
colors because Newcomb added cards with photos on one side and explanations of
the vestments, vessels, sacraments, liturgical colors and the meanings for
everything on the other side.

Spreading Popularity

Soon,
a parishioner moved to North Carolina and introduced The Priest Game to
home-schoolers there. They wanted their own copy. Another mother of six, Traci
Yoder of the Indianapolis Archdiocese, discovered the game and ended up getting
and selling three cases to home-schoolers she knew.

“It
made the Mass terminology like everyday language for the kids,” said Yoder,
“and they quickly learned what a monstrance is, for example. They have a lot of
fun playing and learning what the names are.”

Father
William Vath of the Lafayette diocesan tribunal appears on one board and was
one of three priests who reviewed the game before the final version.

“The
game is unique. It’s really needed because we lost two generations of
catechetics with pop psychology,” he said. “The adults, let alone the kids,
know very little about the Mass and what’s involved in it, but if they take the
game seriously, they’d learn a lot.”

Orders
have now come in from 33 states and Canada. Some people are buying the game for
adult siblings going through Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults classes. A
vocation director in a Texas diocese got one. And members of the Serra Club in
California are using it to train altar servers.

Michelle
Newcomb is still amazed. It appears providential that the game was completed on
Holy Thursday. “I just get the sense that God is trying to glorify his priests
and the Mass through this,” she said.

Why Not?

But
vocations are not all fun and games. When Legionary Brother Vianney Châtillon
and Brother Jorge Ranninger considered the vocations problem, they thought,
“Why not an Internet video to motivate vocations?”

The
result is WhyNotPriest.org, a video and website available in not one but
several languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and German).

In
short clips, a number of Legion of Christ seminarians hailing from countries
around the world sum up their joyful and upbeat reasons for studying for the
priesthood. They’re models of those responding to Pope John Paul II and Pope
Benedict XVI, who both have urged young men to be not afraid to say Yes to the
Lord’s call.

“For
quite some time, Brother Jorge and I have wanted to do something for vocations,
to be able to share with the other young people in the world the joy and
happiness we’ve found in the ‘Yes’ we’ve given to God,” explained Brother
Vianney, who, like Brother Jorge, is a student in Rome. “We all want to be
happy in this life, and so, the happy need to share their reasons for
happiness.”

Beginning
in June 2008, both men tackled the job of editing the video and decided to
produce it in multiple languages.

Said
Brother Vianney, “We wanted to show that Christ has not only come for a
particular race or society, but for the men of the whole planet.”

The
response has been extraordinary.

The
video has had some 20,000 Internet viewers in less than three weeks, after
being posted in late 2008. Because the web page allows questions or concerns
about discernment, many viewers have responded or commented. Many speak of not
just the priestly vocation, noted Brother Vianney, “but the vocation that God
has for each one of us, be it marriage, the priesthood or consecrated life.”

Messages
are even coming from as far away as China, Russia and Saudi
Arabia.

“Our
great hope is that some young people may begin this discernment process thanks
to initiatives like this Internet one,” he said. “Let’s hope that God’s call
reaches many youth through this little video.”

The
makers of The Priest Game also see the potential of video; the game includes a
three-part DVD on the Mass, which Father Alkire made and gave to the Newcombs
to include. He walks through the Mass and explains the mysteries and instills
deep reverence for the Eucharist.

Elijah Cup

Games
and videos alone don’t make vocations, of course. Also needed: serious
dedication to prayer.

Serra
Clubs provide that with a new initiative called the Elijah Cup.

The
concept is simple. According to Bob Fink, president of the Serra Metro Atlanta
Club, families sign up on a voluntary basis to accept an Elijah Cup at Sunday
Mass, take it home for the week, and pray daily for an increase and
perseverance in priestly vocations, using the cup as the focal point of their
prayers. It becomes a visual reminder that if we pray for vocations the “cup” —
like the one Elijah blesses in 1 Kings 17 — will never run dry; God will
provide priests.

“In
Atlanta, we usually average 50 seminarians at one time and usually eight to 10
ordinations every June,” Fink said, pointing out that there are three Serra
Clubs in the Atlanta region. “We think the prayers with the Elijah Cup work for
the vocations.”

In
fact, he’s heard from young priests, several of whom went to college or
employment first, who said that knowing people were praying for them helped in
their discernment process.

In
participating parishes, after Communion, a family receives the Elijah Cup,
which is usually a real chalice — sometimes the one used at that particular
Mass.

Fink
believes “it adds more significance, especially for the children, because it
actually contained the blood of Christ during the Mass.”

The
influence can’t be underestimated. Patricia DeJarnett, who recently moved to
Colorado from Atlanta, still remembers what one boy said about the chalice.

“He
said that by the end of the week he figured out they weren’t only praying for
other people, but praying for themselves, too,” explained DeJarnett. “After
that little boy spoke, you wouldn’t believe how many priests signed up for the
cup that night.”

Staff writer Joseph Pronechen is

based in Trumbull, Connecticut.

For More Information
The Priest Game:CatholicKidsGames.com
WhyNotPriest.org
SerraAtlanta.org/elijahcup

We encourage a lively and honest discussion of our content. We ask that charity guide your words.
By submitting this form, you are agreeing to our discussion guidelines.
Comments are published at our discretion. We won't publish comments that lack charity, are off topic, or are more than 400 words.
Thank you for keeping this forum thoughtful and respectful.